WhatsApp announced its new privacy policy beginning this year, to be specific, in the early days of January. But unlike what the messaging platform expected, the newly updated privacy policy faced tremendous backlash from users in India. Well, that was because, in the policy, WhatsApp revealed user details it shares with parent company Facebook, and there are a lot of them. The new WhatsApp privacy policy created a buzz in the entire country and angry users moved to platforms such as Signal and Telegram eventually.
Due to all the criticism WhatsApp received on its new privacy policy, the secure messaging platform later decided to push the deadline to accept the policy by three months, till May 15, which is just a few days away.
At the time of pushing the rollout timeline, WhatsApp promised that in the next three months it will educate users and explain specific details related to the new privacy policy. The Facebook owned messaging platform said, “We’ll be doing much more to make our voice clear going forward.”
Unfortunately, we haven’t seen WhatsApp do much about it, atleast not till now.
All that the platform has done so far is publish a few blogs and push banners on the app informing users that they are yet to agree to the ToS. As per the banner, users must accept the updated new privacy policy to “continue using WhatsApp after this date.”
What happens if you do not accept the new privacy policy?
Well, unless WhatsApp decides to extend the deadline last minute, no such news so far, if you don’t accept the new ToS by May 15, you will not lose some functionalities of the app. The company said in a statement previously that “you won’t have full functionality of WhatsApp until you accept; for a short time, you’ll be able to receive calls and notifications, but won’t be able to read or send messages.”
Image: Flickr
But how much is that short time? We don’t know that as of yet and neither has WhatsApp revealed any specific details related to it. But what we do know that, either way you will eventually need to accept the privacy policy to enjoy all features offered by the secure messaging platform. That’s quite smart of you, WhatsApp.
You must note here that your WhatsApp account will not be deleted unless it remains inactive for more than 120 days.
How to accept WhatsApp new privacy policy
You will get to see the policy pop-up on the homescreen itself. To accept the new privacy policy an, tap on ‘Agree’ option that that appears on the screen when you log into the app.
“By tapping AGREE, you accept the new terms and privacy policy,” WhatsApp shows this banner on the screen. That’s the only way you get to accept the newly update ToS, there’s no other option or anything available for now.
If you don’t see the pop-up, chances are you have already accepted the new WhatsApp privacy policy.
